


A D&D Story: The Release of the Shadowed Lord

by KingSirahk



Series: D&D: Is Where You Ought To Be [1]
Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, M/M, why do you ask?, yes this is heavily inspired by Critical Role
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24825754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingSirahk/pseuds/KingSirahk
Summary: Akihito and his party are on a mission to find a missing relic in the mountains.If only it was that simple...
Relationships: Asami Ryuichi/Takaba Akihito
Series: D&D: Is Where You Ought To Be [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795690
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	A D&D Story: The Release of the Shadowed Lord

It was meant to be a quick, if not simple quest.

The task was to travel to the mountains and find the entrance to a forgotten cave; kill whatever or whoever happened to be the pest of the evening, and look for a religious chalice that was accidentally left behind during an excavation that was ambushed a few weeks ago. They would look around to see if they could find any spare treasure to shove into their Bag of Holding before heading back to the town to drop off said shiny artifact to the lazy holy man who has to hire adrenaline junkies from a backyard tavern to do his dirty work. Finally, they would receive the lousy reward money that was offered and be on their way to the next city and the next gig.

Simple, Mitarai had said as he drank from his tankard the night before.

Looking back on it, however, Akihito knew it was anything but simple.

To get to the cave, the party traveled nearly half a day’s walk to reach the Cold Hills; large, snowy peaks that loomed over the lush valley below. They had no issue skirting around the booming farm town of Freyrest; after asking for directions from a friendly baker in the main courtyard of town, they took the main road that led north. They passed villagers, merchants, and farmers that were coming into Freyrest from nearby towns and villages for the daily trade. No one seemed to notice or care for the strange party that walked by them, seemingly used to eclectic groups coming and going to Freyrest all the time.

Their group of small-time adventurers consisted of a plump halfling with dusty red hair thrown up in a sloppy ponytail with a short beard on his freckled face. He wore a deep red tunic, a faded black vest, with two brown leather pocket belts around his thick waist, and a gray cloak. He idly played the flute as the party hiked towards the mountains and carried a small lute on his back. Walking a few steps behind him, a young Elven woman with delicately plaited platinum blonde hair, chatted with her fellow party members. She wears a simple but beautiful silver armor breastplate with gold detail around the edges. Underneath her armor is a deep purple dress that hits at her calves, showing off well-crafted leather boots. She carries her shield on her back with the image of the Dawnfather etched into the metal and mace on her hip.

Walking next to her, another elf in worn brown leathers and linen shirt, wearing a deep green cloak covering his broad shoulders. His light brown hair tied a small ponytail with one thin braid on the left side of his head. Strapped to his back, a quiver and bow poking out beneath his cloak. Between the two elves, a young male gnome with dark wild hair that reached just past his chin. On his head was a plain headdress of small ram-like horns that curled back. He is dressed in various greens and brown leathers and carried a small staff with half of an antler and a large strangely spotted stone tied at the tip. The three of them chat as they listen to the halfling play, taking no notice of their surroundings.

Looming over and behind the group, a large, battle-scarred half-orc dressed in a tattered navy tunic with no sleeves, battered black trousers underneath his shin and knee armor. His silver-white hair is cropped close to his scalp where one could see two large claw scars across both sides of his head. His tusks made his permanent scowl more intimidating than the large Warhammer strapped to his back. Behind him, keeping watch for anything out of the ordinary, a human male with wheat blond hair wearing dark clothes and cloak, doing his best to be as unnoticeable with a very noticeable party.

Once the party nears the base of the Hills, the group turned east and followed along the path of the mountain chain. Carefully guided by their half-elven ranger, Takato, they manage to only disturb a few small animals from their resting place. An hour into the off beaten trail, Mitarai, the halfling bard demands a short rest, complaining of sore feet and an empty stomach.

Finding shade underneath a cluster of trees not too far off the trail, the party sits and eats a light lunch of bread, cheese, and smoked meats from the local markets of Freyrest. Ai, the elven cleric, decides to bring up her concerns with the task ahead, worried about what monsters lurk in the underground caves of the Cold Hills. “They say that there are several goblin clans that call the Cold Hills their home. And kobolds are very common in this area.” She looks beyond the trees as she absentmindedly touches her holy symbol around her neck. “We should keep a lookout for anything unsavory.”

“That’s why we have the beast and the sneaky one,” Mitarai says, chomping on a small block of cheese. “They’ll keep a watch out for anything spooky, right?” He calls out to the half-orc and the human.

Glaring over his shoulder, Akihito the human rogue calls out, “Don’t call Suoh a beast, shorty.”

“Hey!” Mitarai huffs. “I meant it as a compliment. You know that right, Suoh?” He asks, dismissively to the half-orc who doesn’t even bother to look at the halfling. “I mean, the man is eight times bigger than me. Basically, everyone is a beast by that point.” A disapproving glare from Ai is the only answer he receives.

“Five times if you’re talking width,” Akihito mutters. A subtle snort from his left tells him that Suoh heard him.

As did Mitarai who crosses his arms in annoyance and says, “Remember, Akihito, I’m the bard in this party. I make the jokes, kid.”

“Yeah, but my jokes are actually funny.” He claims, causing several members of the party to snicker.

Mitarai smirks. “Oh ho, I’ll remember that for next time when we need some coin, and we’re in a busy tavern full of drunks willing to get rid of some silver. You’ll be singing for our dinner then, not me.”

Akihito gives him a flat look. “I’ll practice my harmonies tonight.”

Mitarai sneers. “I’ll make sure that you do.” A threat is what Akihito hears. Turning away, Akihito silently finishes his meal.

Kou, the gnomish druid, watches his friend for a moment, concern written on his face. He notices the tense shoulders on the rogue. “Akihito, are you alright?” 

The human sighs into his last bit of bread before placing it into his mouth. He turns around to face his friends, hands on his knees as he sits with his legs crossed in front of him. “No.” He replies honestly, “Why are we doing this again?”

“Because we’re getting paid.” Mitarai barks out as he grabs his lute and begins to pick at the strings nonchalantly and is unconcerned with Akihito’s worries.

Akihito rolls his eyes, choosing to ignore Mitarai as usual. “Besides that, don’t you think it’s a little weird? This “quest” to find a valuable chalice in an underground cave that got left behind by accident?” He looks over at his friends to see if anyone else finds the scenario odd. “Doesn’t anyone think that this is a little...cliche?” 

“The original party of priests and worshippers of the Dawnfather were ambushed by bandits that followed them to the forgotten temple and during their escape, the chalice was left behind. We have been asked by one of the fellow priests to return the important holy artifact to its rightful place.” Ai says, her tone of a teacher trying to remind her students that had forgotten their lesson from the day before.

“ Okay,” Akihito nods, though not satisfied with the know-it-all response. “Why were they there?”

“To excavate an old forgotten temple of Pelor.” She says matter-of-factly.

“In the mountains?” He asks, dubiously.

Ai smiles though Akihito could see it frayed at the edges. “Yes, temples can be built anywhere, Akihito.”

Akihito clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I’m aware of that and that’s why my question is: why would you build a temple of the Sky Guy in the mountains?”

Ai releases a small sigh of annoyance, “For the last time, Pelor’s name is not “Sky Guy”.”

“He's the embodiment of the sun. He’s all about light and heaven stuff. He lives in the sky.” Akihito holds out his arms with a shrug that says the name ‘Sky Guy’ is an accurate name for one of the most powerful deities in the Parthenon. ”So again: why would someone build a temple in the mountains, underground, in the dark to a god of light and skyness?”

Ai pauses, the look on her face was one of exasperation. “Perhaps...they were trying...to bring the light to the darkness.” It was a forced reply and one that fell flat against the ears of her party.

Akihito shakes his head, “I don’t think that’s it.”

“Yeah, Ai, I think you were grasping at smoke on that.” Mitarai says over the sound of idle notes from his instrument.

Takato looks over to Akihito, “What do you think it is then?”

“...I don’t know.” He murmurs, “But I do know that I don’t trust the priest.”

“Father Yamako?” Ai asks, surprised that Akihito didn’t trust someone from her own order. “Why not?”

He looks away from his friend, unsure how to express his immediate dislike of the handsome, older, stocky human male with a well-groomed beard that greeted them in the Fat Rat Pub the night before, pleading for help from a group that had some experience with getting dirty. He had explained that a group of fellow priests and worshippers had found the temple after a member of their congregation had a vision of a lost altar underground for weeks. When they found it, the party was overjoyed and decided to have a service in honor of their god for a blessing before continuing excavating the temple. However, a group of bandits had followed them and as they began their worship, they were attacked. A few from the parish were slain but most were able to escape but during the chaos of fleeing, someone left behind several religious artifacts including a very important ceremonial chalice.

Father Yamako explained that the rest of the parish didn’t feel safe going back to get the chalice, worried that the bandits were still around. He had hopes of finding and hiring a skilled group to go in and scout the area while looking for the chalice but as of yet, no one seemed willing or able to take the time to look toward the Hills. With the object returned, Father Yamako hoped it would bring peace and courage to the rest of his parish to continue their holy work. 

Ai had been in tears at the man’s story, and when he offered the group a humble 150 gold for their troubles, the rest of the party were swayed into taking the task. Akihito was otherwise unconvinced and had many questions.

Akihito is not a holy man and has no attachments to any of the gods that roam this plane. However, he has met characters like Father Yamako during his time with the Thieves’ Guild. 

While the man wore the white and gold robes of Pelor, something about the priest’s character rubbed Akihito wrong, taking him back to the time he roamed the shadowy streets of Okyto, dealing with the thugs and wannabe kingpins of the underground. Perhaps it was the cold look he gave to Ai as she waxed poetic sermons about their god or the crisp smile he gave when Akihito asked for more details about the ambush or how he brushed them off about going to the temple to speak to the other parish members. Even his robes, the gold and white linen were spotless, almost new for a “humble man” that claimed to have worked with the hardworking farming townsfolk of Freyrest. To Akihito, something about the garment looked...off like a costume that one would buy for the Fools Day Festival, genuine enough for drunken eyes and gullible strangers. His time with the Thieves’ Guild taught him to trust his gut and Father Yamako felt dirty.

“I don’t trust a lot of people, Ai, you know that.” He says instead, trying to make light of the situation. “It’s part of my charm.” 

Ai purses her lips, unsatisfied with his answer but decides not to push the conversation any further. After a quiet moment, she asks the group if they are ready to continue. With a complaint or two from Mitarai, the small adventuring party gathers their things and follows Takato further into the woods, looking for the lost cave in the mountain.

***

Kou is the one to finally spot the entrance.

They had been walking around for over an hour, trying to look for the certain landmark that Father Yamako mentioned: a large boulder with what appears to be flowers growing out on top of the stone that sits directly east of Freyrest. The way the priest had talked about it, he made it sound like a miracle as well as something one couldn’t miss. “Colorful, beautiful blossoms that sprout from stone is only the work of the Dawnfather himself,” the priest said. 

Akihito doesn’t know much about the gods, so he kept his comments to himself but he was certain that the Sky Guy didn’t really do much with nature, including making flowers bloom from stone.

Kou spots the rock among the shrubs and shadows of the mountain due to the setting sun, shouting out, “There!” before skipping over to a cluster of stones that sat next to the mountainside, one larger than the rest with small flowers and moss growing on it. To find that the so-called miracle landmark was really a cluster of gnome-size rocks with moss and few purple flower-like weeds growing on top of it was…disappointing. ‘A real let down,’ Akihito thought as he and the other members of the party walked up to it. He couldn’t blame Mitarai’s grumblings.

That’s when Akihito felt a cool breeze that carried the scent of wet, dark earth just thirty feet or so away to where Kou stood, hands and staff out before him and a beaming smile on his pleasant face, pleased to be the one that found the cave. “That’s what I was pointing to,” the druid says.

Walking up to the entrance of the underground cave, it was easy to see why and how they didn’t see it. A recent landslide covered a third of the entrance, and with the setting sun causing darker shadows to form, the entrance looked more like rocks than a hole in the mountain. 

Takato steps forward and begins the tasks of removing the rocks from the entrance.

“Well, great. Now we have to do some hard labor.” Mitarai grumbles, hands on his hips looking at the rocks before him with distaste.

“Adventuring is hard labor.” Takato grunts as he hoists a cannon size rock off to the side. Suoh steps in and begins working on the larger ones.

“Yeah, but that’s because it’s sexy. Women like stories of adventuring and dungeon crawling and monster slaying. Moving rocks isn’t sexy or thrilling to boast about.” The halfling says, folding his arms across his chest. “If it were, the average Joe would be scoring more in the taverns than me.”

“I don’t know,” Ai says, stepping out of the way as Suoh lifts a rather large rock before throwing it off to the side with a loud crack against the mountainside. “Suoh is looking pretty sexy right now.” 

Mitarai perks up and jumps into action, grabbing whatever rocks he could find and struggling to move them out of the way all while looking over his shoulder to check to see if Ai is watching him. Akihito grins to himself and shakes his head as he rolls his eyes towards Ai who gives him a cheeky smile and a shrug. The whole group knows that Mitarai likes Ai; he does very little to keep it a secret. While Ai does not return the halfling’s feelings she does use the knowledge of Mitarai’s crush on her to her (and the group’s) advantage, mainly by making Mitarai do chores that he normally wouldn’t do but does because Ai asked him to and he always wants to impress her. 

Sometimes, Akihito wonders if she has the power of Persuasion at her disposal.

Soon, the three of them make an opening into the cave. The sun is beginning to sink behind the mountain, casting the large shadows into the valley. The remaining valley and the town of Freyrest bask in the early summer sun, a true sunset still a couple of hours away. Takato looks around before telling the group of the time. “It’s close to five o’clock, so we have about three more hours of sunlight.”

As the party stands before the cave entrance and looks down the dark tunnel, a soft hollow wind from beneath the mountain calls out to them, like a haunting song.

‘A warning, perhaps?’ Akihito thinks as he shakes off a chill.

“Well, shall we?” Takato asks, looking over to Akihito, a flicker of worry in his light green eyes. Akihito stares back, letting his hesitation read on his face but before Takato could comment on it Mitarai walks up, chest out, and shouts into the darkness, “Quickmights, forward!”

The rogue does his best not to strangle the stupid bard. “Mitarai!” Akihito hisses.

“Wha-at?” The bard whines turning around to face his companion.

Akihito silently jesters at the dark with obvious frustration. _So much for a stealthy operation!_

“I don’t think you should be yelling, Mitarai.” Kou whispers, trying his best to keep the peace.

“Yeah, and if they are kobolds and goblins in this cave, you just announced our presence to them. So thank you.” Akihito says sarcastically.

Realization falls on Mitarai's face but he quickly recovers. “Uh, well, I was just letting them get a chance to run away.” He claims, turning to face the empty trail before them, a hand on his hip and broad chest sticking out proudly, “Because the Quickmights are here!” He shouts into the shadows. A small echo of “Quickmights are here” is all that greets him.

Akihito groans, rubbing his face in his hands and wondering how the hell he even tolerates this idiot of a bard. Standing to his left, he hears Takato mutter. “I still don’t like the name.” 

Akihito and Suoh grunt in agreement.

“I think it’s cute,” Ai says as she walks deeper into the cave, giving a small smile to her group. She then utters a spell in Elvish and a bright light appears on top of her morningstar. She holds it out like a torch before her.

“We’re supposed to be a fearsome and powerful group of mercenaries and adventurers. Being cute is not at the top of our list.” Akihito says.

Ai sighs. “Well, I certainly don’t want to be in a group called “Death’s Skull” or whatever you suggested.” 

“First of all, it was Deft Skills, and it’s a play on words since we all have an arrangement of skills and abilities unique to this group.” Akihito states, ready to start a rant before being interrupted by Kou.

“I liked the Mighty Force.” He says, looking up to his friends.

“Nah, that’s too close to the Mighty Nein,” Takato says, wrinkling his nose. “We don’t want to be mixed up with them.” 

Akihito nods and looks over to Suoh, standing behind them, his face seemingly unimpressed and bored.

“Did you suggest a name, Suoh?” Akihito asks. 

The half-orc looks down to him and after a moment gruffly says, “The Reckless.”

Akihito nods his head in approval. “I like it.” 

He looks over to Takato who is also nodding his head. “I feel that accurately represents our group.”

“Yeah, what adventuring party isn’t reckless?” 

“I mean, we’re a reckless party, recklessly going into a cave of unknown, supposedly trying to find a fancy cup and hopefully, not recklessly die.” 

For a moment, only the clumsy steps of Mitarai softly echoing in cavern walls could be heard.

Kou breaks the silence with a light cough. “I still think it’s missing something.”

“Yeah, we like The Reckless, but I think it needs something else with it too. Like the Reckless Force or Power.” Takato says.

“You keep working on it, Suoh.” Akihito says, looking up at his barbarian friend. “We give you the power to rename the group; no matter what the halfling says.”

Suoh nods his head before moving around the gnome and following Ai further into the cave.

Seeing the flashes of light up ahead, Akihito calls out to the cleric. “Hey, Miss Bright Light, could you stop waving that around? We’re trying to be a covert operation here.”

“Oh, does the whole party have dark vision now?” She asks sweetly, knowing that Akihito is the only one in the party _without_ the natural capability to see in the dark.

Takato chokes down a laugh. Kou doesn’t even bother to hide his giggles. 

Akihito frowns as he crosses his arms against his chest. “You know, she used to be nicer.” 

“Yeah, well she’s known you for three months.” Takato quips a smirk in his direction as he bumps his shoulder against Akihito’s.

Akihito gives his friends his signature pout. “I’m leaving. Have fun in the dark, killing goblins and falling into traps.” He says and turns to exit the cave when a heavy hand grabs the back of his cloak and throws him forward.

“Go check for traps.” Suoh gruffly says and pushes the rogue forward.

His “friends” snicker behind him. _Everyone is so ungrateful_ Akihito thinks with a pout before donning his hood and carefully running up ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO AND WELCOME TO MY NEW SERIES BECAUSE I CAN'T WRITE ONE-SHOTS! ~Title of my life.
> 
> A humble and well-deserved shout out to my partner-in-crime, my fellow Asian drama watcher, and beta, [thetulipsaretoored](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetulipsaretoored/pseuds/thetulipsaretoored) for your encouragement to go ahead and post this chapter and to [BeautifulOtomeHell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulOtomeHell/pseuds/BeautifulOtomeHell) for being a sweetheart and hypeman when it comes to my writing. Both of you are amazing and supportive and I'm so happy to have you in my circle and I can gush about The Untamed, Guardian, and Finder all hours of the day. 
> 
> You don't have to know about Dungeons and Dragons or Critical Role, this is a story for anyone (though if you do, let's be friends and roll for initiative :P).
> 
> Thank you for reading and stay tuned! <3


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